If it wasn’t for the nudity of the Woman in
Giorgione’s “Tempest”, we would easily recognize the painting as a version of
“The Rest on the Flight into Egypt.” The broken columns in the mid-ground are
commonplace in versions of the Rest. In recent posts we have also seen that at
the beginning of the sixteenth century St. Joseph was being portrayed as
younger and more virile than in earlier depictions. We also know that a nursing
mother will almost always be the Madonna.
Besides the fact that the woman in Giorgione’s “Tempest”
is nursing, there are two other elements that help to identify her as the
Madonna. First, there is the white cloth that extends over her shoulders and
even envelopes her son. Second, there is the plant featured so prominently in
front of the woman.
First, let’s consider the cloth. Although some have
called it a shirt, it is obvious that it is not an article of a woman’s
clothing. It is much too large. No only does it cover the child, but it also
covers the woman’s shoulders and back, and then overflows onto the ground. What
is it? In my interpretation of the “Tempest” I identified the cloth as the corporale, the white cloth that covers
the altar at every Mass. In Franciscan spirituality Mary was identified as the
altar on which the Eucharist was placed.
In “Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice” the
late Rona Goffen, one of the most prolific Venetian Renaissance scholars, noted
the connection between the Madonna and the Eucharistic altar. For example, in
Giovanni Bellini’s famed Pesaro altarpiece in the Frari,
the viewer-worshipper is meant to identify the
Madonna with the altar and the Child with the Eucharist. Bellini's visual
assertion of this symbolic equivalence is explained by a common Marian epithet.
The Madonna is the "Altar of Heaven." the Ara Coeli, that contains
the eucharistic body of Christ....Ave verum Corpus, natum de Maria
Virgine."* (53)
Later Titian would utilize the corporale in his famed Pesaro altarpiece. Goffen identified the
white cloth on Mary’s head in that famous painting as the corporale:
the Madonna's veil recalls the winding cloth,
ritualized as the corporale, the
cloth spread on the altar to receive the Host of the Mass.**
There are other examples. In the so-called
“Allendale Adoration of the Shepherds”, variously attributed to Giorgione or
Titian, the infant Christ lies on a white cloth that is placed on the stony
ground. Many nativity scenes such as this one were actually depictions of the
first Mass. The infant Christ, the Eucharist, lies on the white cloth that
covers the stony ground.
A lost Giorgione painting that only exists in a
seventeenth century copy was once thought to depict the story of the discovery
of the infant Paris on Mt. Ida. It is actually a depiction of an encounter of
the Holy Family with robbers, an apocryphal episode associated with the flight
into Egypt. In that painting the infant Christ lies on a white cloth spread on
the stony ground.
Examples could be multiplied but the fact remains
that no other explanation of the “Tempest” has tried to explain the
significance of the white cloth.
Despite countless studies and interpretations,
scholars have also avoided discussion of the plant in front of the woman. Some
think that it is there to cover the woman’s nakedness although it is obviously
doing a very poor job. Most interpretations don’t even mention it. If you take another look at the "Allendale Adoration" above, you will see that a plant (probably a bay laurel) also features prominently in that painting.
When I first saw the “Tempest” I wondered about the
plant and thought that it might be one of the plants that are commonly
associated with the Madonna. Knowing little about plants, I consulted my
younger brother, a high school science teacher and master botanist. It is
incredible to walk through the woods with him and hear him name every tree and
plant and discuss their characteristics. Without flowers it is hard to
identify, but he suggested that the root structure and the way it is growing
indicate a nightshade.
Even I knew that the most well known nightshade was
the deadly nightshade or belladonna, a plant that I subsequently found out was
associated with witchcraft and the devil. Although poisonous, Italian women in
Giorgione’s time commonly used belladonna extract to dilate and beautify their
eyes. The belladonna plant became another piece of the “Tempest” puzzle that
fit so easily into place. What else could explain the fact that the part of the
plant below the heel of the woman had withered and died than the famous quote
from Genesis 3:15? God speaks to the serpent about Eve and her offspring.
I will make you enemies of each other:
You and the woman,
Your offspring and her offspring.
It will crush your head
And you will strike its heel.
Modern scholars use either “he” or “it” to indicate
that it is the offspring that will crush the head of the serpent. During the
Renaissance the Latin Vulgate used “she”. ###
*Rona Goffen, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, Yale, 1986, p. 53.
Goffen, op. cit., p. 114.
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